Life of Agony is a band that has influenced my life since my teenage years – Life of Agony is one of the best bands ever to walk the planet. The integrity and honesty they purvey through their music runs strong through the hearts of anyone who connects with it. And that’s a proven fact – Life of Agony have just wrapped up their 20 Years Strong tour in Europe to massive crowds. They enjoy a fan base that spans across generations, and hopefully, they’ll last a lot longer in this crazy world. I got in touch with the uber-talented Alan Robert through Facebook…

MI: Hello, sir. Can I interview you for metalisrael.com via chat one of these days?

AR: Sure! I’m around for the next 30 min – u ready?

MI: Always. Well, almost always. I will preclude by saying how much I love LOA, DFL applied.

AR: I appreciate that.

MI: What’s going on? Tell me about Wire Hangers.

AR: Well, Wire Hangers has been out monthly since April. Final issue of this story arc comes out Sept 1st (this wed). A compiled graphic novel edition will hit stores in November. It’s published by IDW Publishing (30 Days of Night, GI Joe, Transformers, etc.) Some other REALLY exciting things are brewing around it too, but I can’t announce it yet.

MI: AAAAGhhh suspense!!!!! So, you trained at SVA – I know you did the trademark logo (and River Runs Red album concept/cover) for Life of Agony – did you start off drawing comics there? Where did you get your love for comics? I mean, forgive me for assuming you love them, but I think you need to in order to make them. Am I right?

AR: I grew up on comics. My dad had a collection including early Spider Man comics and Detective Comics from the Silver Age era. I got hooked since he showed me those as a kid. I’ve been drawing all my life, so making comics was the natural next step for me. I had the Wire Hangers concept for a long time now, so bringing it to life was a really awesome experience. Especially, published by IDW, my favorite comics publisher.

MI: Is Wire Hangers your first project ever? And were IDW Life of Agony fans? How did you make the hookup?

AR: I actually got the comic deal through Twitter! Around the time I was ready to pitch the concept to publishers, I started on Twitter. I started following some of my face comic artists and writers. IDW’s Chris Ryall was writing a book called Groom Lake. We started chatting over twitter, then trading comics for music. We hit it off right away. I didn’t realize he was one of the main guys over there.

MI: So you have this Internet thing, right? On one hand, a lot of musicians are pretty ticked off with it, because you’re losing a lot of royalties, but on the other hand, like you just said, you can make awesome business connections with it – what are your feelings towards it? I know it’s a pretty general question but any insight is appreciated.

AR: I don’t have any problems with the Internet, I’ve embraced it. You can’t avoid the downloading issue. It’s out there – people illegally download music, books, movies, etc. every day. It sucks for the artists because essentially it affects the whole industry because if record labels, book publishers, etc. lose money in sales, it affects the money they can give to support these projects, which makes it harder for artists to survive being creative- a trickle down problem.

MI: Duly noted. OK… Does the secret stuff have to do with Wire Hangers or Life of Agony?

AR: Wire Hangers.

MI: The temptation to play guessing games is too great. So what’s up with Life of Agony?!

AR: We’ve been pretty busy with LOA getting the 20 Yrs Strong DVD together and the summer tour. Did you see the footage from Poland on our site? 500K people!

MI: What do you think of the fact that metal, true music from the heart like you put out, can go on 20 years strong the way pop acts rarely, if ever do, but meanwhile it rarely makes it on the charts?

AR: We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to build this fan base over time, over multiple generations. We never set out to write radio songs, we just always did what we did. Most of our success was built around our live show and creating tunes that people could really relate to. We always had a more grassroots approach.

I was there!

MI: OK..thanks for that. What is your view about Israel? You unfortunately don’t have much of a following there, but would you play there? Ozzy’s playing September 28 – it’s gonna be huge.

AR: Doubtful, we’ve never been to Japan either…or South America. And I know this music is really big over there. We just never were able to get it together for those trips. Europe has been something we’ve been building since 1993/1994 so it’s super strong for us.

MI: It’s the main metal market anyway in this world. They have taste in this, at least. Have you ever heard any Israeli bands?

AR: No, sorry.

MI: I guess that’s it (for now). Please send warm regards & respect to Mr. Z. for me. Thanks so much for your time. But one more closing question!

AR: Sure!

MI: As you, Mr. Robert, see your career progressing, are you happy with where it is and what else do you want to accomplish before you get out the golf clubs?

AR: Well, first off – I’ve never been into golf, so that’s definitely out…

MI: Yeah that’s Joey’s thing, I was kind of nonplussed by it myself, but to each their own.

AR: …But, I’d really love to move into other visual storytelling mediums like movies or TV. I have a lot of respect for Rob Zombie, they way he’s been able to do his music and branch out as a director. So, for me the future is really an open book.

MI: Many thanks to you and a happy Jew year as well. LOA! LOA! LOA!